Read Pam Kasey's article about the PSC's investigation of Potomac Edison.
Methinks Todd doth protest too much! :-)
Methinks Todd doth protest too much! :-)
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Delegate Stephen Skinner has delivered on the promise he made to all of you during the Citizens' Public Hearing on May 22.
Today, the WV Public Service Commission notified Delegate Skinner that it has determined, "...a general investigation should be initiated into the practices and procedures of both Potomac Edison Company and Monongahela Power Company as it relates to meter reading, billing and practices involving estimated bills." The Commission "...intends to issue its order initializing a general investigation next week." Please join me in thanking Delegates Skinner, Lawrence, and Espinosa, and Senators Unger and Snyder, and our Jefferson County Commissioners Widmyer, Manuel and Noland for swift and successful action. And thanks also to the NAACP, the Coalition for Reliable Power and the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club for organizing and hosting the Public Hearing, as well as thanks to every citizen who came out to the hearing, especially those who came forward to share their stories. There's still much more work to be done, but we can now pause to savor our first victory! A friend reports that someone claiming to be a Potomac Edison employee called up a morning radio talk show on WSHC today and ranted on the air about Potomac Edison customers who had complained about receiving inaccurate bills, calling them "deadbeats." Apparently nobody caught his name, or the number he was calling from, and WSHC doesn't record their shows for rebroadcast.
I didn't hear it myself because I was off doing radio on a different station this morning, but I don't doubt it happened. What I do doubt is that it actually was a Potomac Edison employee. Unfortunately for FirstEnergy, the rest of the listeners may not have been as skeptical. FirstEnergy's hole just keeps getting deeper in the eastern panhandle. Regulatory capture is the theory that regulators are often captured and controlled by the very industry they are charged with regulating in the public interest. When a regulatory agency acts as a revolving door for utility industry executives, familiarity and arrogance proliferates and leaves the public under served and holding the door. Sadly, it looks like FirstEnergy is keeping its PSC Chairman Michael Albert on a very short leash. The Commissioner has been openly disparaging the members of the public who dared express their thoughts on FirstEnergy's unwise plant transfer proposal that will raise their electric rates 6% and lock them into paying for the company's cast-off, aging, power generator for the next 30 years. But in lengthy opening remarks, Albert, a former utility company lawyer whose firm represents FirstEnergy, criticized what he said were inaccurate comments submitted to the PSC and reported by the media about the case. Albert did not provide any specific examples. And he continues his assault on the public by ridiculing the citizens who went to great trouble and expense to show up for the hearing and plead their case in person. Later, he said, "There was an awful lot of testimony (this morning, in the public portion), everybody said we can save the world by energy efficiency and demand response." What an arrogant and thoughtless comment! I really don't believe anyone actually mentioned "saving the world." The public simply wants to save itself from further unnecessary and poorly planned FirstEnergy rate increases. Obviously, Commissioner Albert isn't even capable of putting on his pleasant poker face and pretending to listen to the public he is sworn to serve. Commissioner Albert's decision appears to already be made. As for Chairman Albert: Not to place too much meaning on a small word choice, he spoke of the effect of the proposed transaction at the beginning of the hearing using "will" rather than "would." Thankfully, his 6-year term as Chairman of the Public Service Commission will be expiring next month and Governor Tomblin will be free to appoint someone who is interested in serving the public, instead of serving his former colleagues and possible future employers at FirstEnergy.
Remember FirstEnergy's little fib about being happy to keep Harrison if their proposed transfer from Allegheny Energy Supply to Mon Power/Potomac Edison isn't approved during the company's last quarterly earnings call? Dan Eggers - Credit Suisse: Just following up on Tony's comments and Leila's comments about Harrison. Can you just maybe help us understand how important it is you think at this point in time to move that asset over from a balance sheet perspective relative to a customer benefit perspective? And then given kind of the wide or the low bid made in the intervenor testimony, how important it is to take a lower price or accept a lower price to get this done relative to keep in at FES if the pricing doesn't makes sense? Keeping that "great asset" became a "great liability" yesterday when Credit Suisse's Eggers downgraded FirstEnergy's rating. I'm thinking that maybe Eggers wasn't convinced that Harrison really is a "great asset" after the results of PJM's latest RPM capacity auction were released on Friday (as if he ever really believed Tony the Trickster's silly bluster about keeping Harrison). Eggers took FirstEnergy at their word. If the company keeps its "great asset" it will continue to be unprofitable and drag down its balance sheet. However, if the company can successfully unload the cost of running the plant on its West Virginia regulated customers, it will improve the balance sheet. Credit Suisse noted, “We have liked FE shares over peers for some time, attracted to the large base of regulated utility earnings (73% of 2015) that to us better protected the rich 5.2% dividend yield as well as management's commitment to, and success in, finding ways to extract value from the generation business (FES) in spite of sustained weak power market conditions through the early adoption of Retail, aggressive O&M controls, and fleet management through plant closures and seasonal dispatch until unit economics improved. We still see FE striving to do these things but the ugly reality of the 2016/17 RPM auction results are hard to deny: poor discipline by incumbent generators in the face of depressed forwards and the crushing impact of newbuild capacity plus greater imports are all contributing to an oversupplied market that will inevitably leave energy and capacity prices weak. We are lowering FE to Neutral (from Outperform) - meaning performance in-line with peers - and a target of $40 (from $45) built from our sum-of-the-parts valuation methodology. We see downside from here in all of the Integrated power names as the long and uncertain path to a power market recovery forces investors to reconsider the multiples paid for commodity cyclical power generation assets.” PJM's auction results saw a sharp drop in prices for 2016-2017. This means that not only will it ultimately be cheaper for Mon Power and Potomac Edison to purchase needed capacity from the market rather than buy Harrison to supply needed capacity, but all that unneeded excess supply from Harrison that FirstEnergy is proposing that Mon Power/Potomac Edison buy is now worth less than ever as a source of income that would offset the cost of purchasing the plant. Shares of FirstEnergy Corp. took a hit on Tuesday after Dan Eggers, an analyst for Credit Suisse, downgraded the company's stock to “neutral” from “outperform.” FirstEnergy needs to unload their unprofitable Harrison power station on West Virginia electric consumers now more than ever. The transaction will cause an increase in your monthly bill of at least 6% over current rates. The Public Service Commission begins hearing the case today.
Will FirstEnergy be able to fool the PSC into believing that Harrison is "a great asset?" Or will the Commission face reality like Eggers did? It is imperative that you let the PSC know that you do not support the Harrison transfer. Click here to send your comments online quickly and easily. Simply select case 12-1571 from the drop down menu and type in your comments. Do it now! The West Virginia Public Service Commission demonstrated exactly where its loyalties lie on Wednesday when it failed to show up for a Citizens' Public Hearing about a monumental billing foul up on the part of regulated monopoly Potomac Edison. Instead, the PSC sent their regrets and a statement making excuses for the company. As Senator Herb Snyder thundered during his remarks, "That's not their job!"  Potomac Edison also "respectfully declined" the invitation to participate without explanation. But then again, Potomac Edison doesn't need to explain itself when the PSC will gladly take one for the team. This lack of responsiveness on the part of Potomac Edison and the regulators who are supposed to be protecting consumers from this utility monopoly clearly shows why a Citizens' Public Hearing was warranted. More than 100 customers of Potomac Edison showed up for the hearing, and even though the guests of honor failed to make an appearance, state legislators, county commissioners, and a representative from U.S. Senator Manchin's office listened intently and sympathetically for more than two hours as a total of 26 citizens were heard. The panel of public officials were raptly attentive and clearly flabbergasted at the what they heard, as Potomac Edison customers clutching handfuls of outrageous bills begged for help.  There were audible gasps from the audience as citizens shared the amounts of monthly bills they had received. And even in the face of such adversity, many speakers applied humor to their situation. One threatened to rip the electric meter off the side of his home and send it to the CEO of FirstEnergy C.O.D. to see if the huge bills for an empty house would finally stop. Others related stories about Potomac Edison's excuses for not reading meters that had the audience in stitches. (Loose dogs are a deterrent at a property where the meter reader regularly shares space with a bull -- "He's a really nice bull," said the property owner.) Although Potomac Edison's lack of concern has been intended to beat its customers into submission to step in line and pay the bill they are issued, the customers' spirit has not yet been broken. After every last citizen had been heard, the legislators took the podium, one by one, to pledge justice. Del. Tiffany Lawrence said that Potomac Edison has shown a "lack of decency." Del. Stephen Skinner characterized Potomac Edison as a "...monopoly with shoddy business practices." Sen. Herb Snyder shook his fist while pledging, "This starts tonight. We are going to make the Public Service Commission accountable." Sen. John Unger stated that after PATH, he thought FirstEnergy was "humbled in terms of how they treat people, but they have not learned their lesson." We will be meeting with the legislators to keep you up to date about how they are keeping their promises to all of you. The fight has just begun! |
About the Author Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.
In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history. About
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